India Tour of Sri Lanka: Dark clouds loom over India tour of Sri Lanka series as the island country sees spike in Covid-19 cases. Sri Lanka on Thursday reported 3,269 COVID-19 cases and 24 fatalities In the last 7 days, as many as 16342 cases and 147 deaths have been reported in the country. The second wave in the country has put the already once postponed three ODI and as many T20Is between Sri Lanka and Indian in jeopardy.
India Tour of Sri Lanka: Is the Series jinxed?
Originally scheduled for June 2020, the series was postponed due to the pandemic. In the revised ICC Future Tour Programme (FTP), the white-ball series was moved to July this year. However, with cases rising daily, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) CEO Ashley De Silva said that coronavirus will be a big worry for them.
“Increase in Covid-19 cases are a big worry but we have successfully hosted England and others during Covid times and we are confident we will be able to host India as well, just keeping fingers crossed that cases don’t increase”, said Senior representative of Sri Lanka Cricket to InsideSport.co
India Tour of Sri Lanka: SL vs IND venue will be Colombo
Given the current situation, SLC has decided to host all the matches at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. The matches will be played in a bio-secure bubble.
India Tour of Sri Lanka: Virat Kohli, Rohiti Sharma to be absent from the tour
BCCI will be sending their ‘B’ team for the series as the main squad will be busy fulfilling FTP commitments in England. Top stalwarts like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah will not be part of the Sri Lanka series given they will be playing England for five-Test series. However, the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya and Prithvi Shaw will be available for selection. “Yes, it will be a team of white-ball specialists. It will be a different team,” BCCI president Sourav Ganguly confirmed.
Also Read: IND vs SL: Shreyas Iyer likely to miss ODI and T20 series against Sri Lanka
IND vs SL: India probable squad vs Sri Lanka- Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sanju Samson, Prithvi Shaw, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Jaydev Unadkat, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Tewatia are some of the players who will be in the mix.
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